Jindal latest victim of shoe assault, ‘forgives’ attacker (Lead)

Kurukshetra (Haryana), April 10 (IANS) Millionaire industrialist Naveen Jindal Friday become the latest victim of a shoe attack when a retired school teacher hurled a footwear at him in this Haryana town. But the young Congress MP said that he had “forgiven” the attacker. “Personally, I have forgiven that man but I think that there should be some action against such people,” Jindal told media in state capital Chandigarh, 80 km from here.

“I am sure that he was not a Congress party worker and I do not know that how did he manage to gain entry inside the premises. He was in an inebriated condition and continuously murmuring something,” Jindal said.

Earlier, Congress leaders wanted to complain to the Election Commission against opposition parties for the incident but Jindal said that he was not complaining even though he said that the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leaders are behind the incident.

Though the shoe did not hit Jindal, the Haryana Police took Raj Pal into custody following the incident.

Police officials said that the man had been medically examined and was in an inebriated state when he hurled his shoe at Jindal. The provocation behind the incident was not yet clear.

The incident took place at the Congress office here. Jindal was present at a meeting of party leaders.

Jindal, who represents the Kurukshetra constituency in the Lok Sabha, is seeking re-election from the same constituency.

“The opposition INLD is behind this incident. Their local leaders are responsible for this,” Jindal said.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and union Minister of State in the Prime Miniter’s Office Prithviraj Chavan, who is the Congress in-charge for Haryana, condemned the show-throwing incident.

“Such incidents are not at all good for the health of democracy and we condemn such acts. There should be a legal course of action against the people doing this, so that such incidents do not happen in future,” Hooda said here.

Journalist Jarnail Singh Tuesday had tossed his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram during a press conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.

Jarnail Singh’s grouse was that the Congress and the central government were doing nothing to give justice to victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riot victims. The throw worked, forcing riot suspects Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar of the Congress out of the poll race.